


And I know they say I'm frail and broken

by jperalta



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Anxiety Attacks, F/M, Night Terrors, Panic Attacks, Self-Hatred, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-12
Updated: 2019-11-12
Packaged: 2021-01-29 16:16:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21413035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jperalta/pseuds/jperalta
Summary: Malcolm lets Eve into his life, and he's terrified she'll see the real him and leave.
Relationships: Malcolm Bright & Eve Blanchard
Comments: 5
Kudos: 43





	And I know they say I'm frail and broken

"I'll be right back," he said to Eve. He had hoped she hadn't already noticed his shaking hands, the sweat forming on the top of his forehead.

He ran into the bathroom and slammed his back against the door, then caught his own reflection in the mirror. It was starting to blur. The color felt like it was fading away from everywhere he looked and it was all too much. His limbs started to feel like cotton and he found himself slink against the door to the ground.

Then the knocking inevitably came, followed by Eve's soft voice asking what was wrong, if she could do anything. But he couldn't tell her. He liked her too much and didn't want to drag her into his mess. He wanted to just be able to pretend to be normal, although he knew that no one would believe him if he tried. He tried to steady his breathing. The light continued to fade.

Then there was a shove, and due to how weak he was he felt his whole body lurch forward. Eve poked her foot in, then her head, then the rest of her body. "I don't mean to barge in, but given how hard you were breathing I figured you were either masturbating or..." She looked over his pale face and he knew she could see how far gone he was. "Or having an anxiety attack."

She knelt down beside him and when she started to reach towards him he shrank away. "Please," he said through shattered breaths, "not right now." She withdrew her hand and sat down fully, pulling her knees up to her chest in an attempt to take up as little room as possible as Malcolm sprawled haphazardly across the tile. "I shouldn't have come in. Do you want me to go?" She motioned as if she was going to stand.

"No," he said quickly as he attempted to reach out to her but found his hand only moved a few inches. "It's weird, I... this desire to be alone, but also knowing that... knowing that having someone is... better, probably better." He caught a look at her eyes and saw how concerned she looked. It was the look he had seen from practically everyone close to him at least once, if not constantly. 

He closed his own eyes and rammed his head into the door. "I'm sorry." He kept clenching and stretching his shaking hands. "I'm sorry, I don't know why I let you up. I should just be alone. I should always just..."

"Well, I'm definitely not leaving if it means you're gonna keep hitting your head." He had hardly realized that that's what he was doing until she said this as she put a towel behind his head so he couldn't hurt himself as much. She was keeping so calm around him when he felt everyone else was always just looking for the smallest excuse to leave. He felt a pull inside his chest and felt a pang of nausea, causing him to wince. 

"Are you sure there's nothing I can do? Do you want to at least move to your bed or the couch?" The thought of her seeing his bedroom made him feel more sick. There would be so many questions, as there always were. There would probably be jokes about BDSM, and he would have to try so hard to keep from screaming, from confessing that if he wasn't chained up at night he'd try to throw himself out of the window, that he had before, that a part of him was always, even subconsciously, looking for an escape, looking to die. But he didn't say any of this. He looked into her eyes again, and saw the concern, and he felt terrible for assuming anything she would say if she knew the truth. She was, after all, still here - with him, looking ready and willing to help.

"I..." he began, choking on his own breath as he struggled to breathe through his hyperventilation. "If you could... I'm sorry..."

"Please don't apologize. I want to help."

"If..." He gasped again. "...water. A glass of... please."

But before he could finish whispering out his request, she was up and gone. He heard the sink go on in the kitchen and tried to focus on it - to have anything to hold onto to tether himself to the here and now. But everything was still spinning. It felt like there was fire inside of his head.

Eve came back into the room and gave him the water which he drank as fast as possible.

"Do you have a pill or something that you can take?"

"I... um, yes, but it needs to be refilled."

"Okay, um, well, maybe some whiskey then?

He let himself smile a little. "Eve Blanchard, are you trying to get me drunk?"

"Malcolm Bright, are you possibly smiling?"

He let himself smile more before it faded away and he remembered the weight of everything. He wanted to be honest with her, but he also wanted to take it slow, and he definitely wanted her to like him. Most of all, he didn't want to scare her away. Although here he was, lying on the floor with a glass of half-drunk water in his hand, limbs still shaking after yet another panic attack, and there she was - smiling at him from less than a foot away, her hair a little messy and her eyes more kind than he felt he had ever seen before.

"What?" She asked lightly, as she pat down her hair.

"Nothing," he said turning his head away after he realized he was staring.

* * *

(A few weeks later...)

"You know this is a big deal, right?" He said, trying to hide how nervous he was. "You... staying over?"

"I'm around you all the time."

"Sure, but never when I'm sleeping."

"Malcolm, I've been here a thousand times."

"Yes, but never in my bedroom."

"You make it sound like you have dead bodies in there."

There was a silence. It felt long.

"Sorry, bad joke."

He let out a smile. "It's okay, just... be nice."

He opened the door to his room and she walked in. She saw the chains with cuffs on the bed, the window made of what looked like extremely thick glass, and all the sharp objects placed on his dresser on the opposite end of the room from the bed. 

He closed his eyes and braced himself for the witty comments he imagined she would make, and he imagined everything falling apart. A knot was forming in his stomach. He was wondering why he ever did this. 

But moments came and moments passed, and the silence went on. He finally let himself open his eyes and saw her lounging on his bed, chains and cuffs on the ground, looking at her phone. 

"You're not going to say anything?"

"Me? About what?"

"The... all my... stuff?"

"You told me what happens at night."

"And you're not scared?"

"Should I be?" She let her phone fall slightly and he didn't know what to say. "Are you scared?" She said, setting her phone on his nightstand and swinging her body into an upright sitting position.

He found himself looking at his shoes. She hopped off the bed and walked over to him, her bare feet hardly making a sound on the floor. She reached out and lightly touched his hands with hers. He felt like he was going to cry, and he hated that. He hated how vulnerable he felt, and almost regretted ever allowing anyone who wasn't family into his life. 

But then she pressed her body against his, and he felt how warm she was as she wrapped her arms around him. "You don't have to be scared," she whispered to him, tightening her body around his. He wrapped his arms around her and let his head fall into the corner made by her neck and her shoulder. He couldn't believe it, but he almost felt safe.

* * *

(Several hours later...)

The two were sleeping side by side when Malcolm started shaking. It woke Eve up immediately and she didn't know what to do. For a moment she just stared at his back. Then he started jerking around a bit and she tried to poke him to see if he would wake up. Suddenly, he started violently thrashing around and screaming, and she jumped out of the bed. She knew she wasn't supposed to wake him up, but it was tempting. She just wanted to help, and she found herself walking up to him and kneeling beside the bed.

"Malcom," she whispered. "It's me. It's Eve. It's going to be okay." She kept repeating that to him, and after a few moments, the thrashing and the yelling stopped. Finally he woke up, looked her in the eyes, and immediately began to cry.

"Oh God," he sobbed, "I'm so sorry."

She crawled right back into the bed with him and put her hand on his shoulder. "It's okay, really. It's what happens."

"It's not okay, it's... God, it's why I..." He was struggling to speak. "It's why I didn't want you here at night. I don't want to scare you. I want to be able to be close to you."

She wrapped her arms around his chest and pulled him close to her as he continued to cry. "I'm not going to leave," she said softly. "I'm right here. It's okay."

He raised his own hands up and put them on top of hers. "I can't believe it. Why does it have to be like this? I try to get better and... and..."

"Things take time. Progress isn't linear. This is all stuff you've been told, I'm sure. Just focus on breathing."

He held her hands tighter in his own and felt his knees pull up to his chest. She pressed her lips to the back of his neck.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Stepdad" by Alex Cameron
> 
> I'm sorry y'all, I ship. If only because Eve Blanchard is very pretty and I like that she's looking out for his mom.


End file.
